Bureau of Land Management Rangeland Degradation

September 13, 2023 — Advocates for the West filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for its failure to abide by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act to determine the prioritization and timing of environmental analyses for livestock grazing allotments on public lands. This has resulted in widespread delinquency in assessing environmental conditions and addressing resource damage caused by overgrazing across vast stretches of the American West.

The agency administers 35,000 grazing permits covering 155 million acres across 13 western states. But BLM has failed to conduct required reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for nearly two-thirds (63%) of current BLM grazing permits. The absence of any NEPA analysis was even higher for sensitive allotments that overlap National Monuments or National Conservation Areas (75%), critical habitat for wildlife protected by the Endangered Species Act (76%), the highest priority sage-grouse habitat (79%), and for domestic sheep allotments in bighorn sheep occupied habitat (94%). In addition, for almost three-quarters (74%) of allotments that BLM determined were failing minimum landscape health standards—due at least in part to impacts from livestock grazing—the agency has not conducted NEPA analysis to evaluate the management changes necessary to improve resource conditions.

BLM has often renewed grazing permits two or more times without conducting any NEPA review, even for environmentally significant allotments or allotments failing Land Health standards, meaning the agency has had no NEPA analysis for 15-20 years or more. And the percent of allotments nationwide that the agency reauthorized for grazing without NEPA review rose from 28% in 2013 to 38% in 2017, and up to 54% in 2021.